Metal
by Prufrax
Summary: It is rather easy to be blindsided by that which we are ignorant about. However, the consequences will still catch up to us. (Sci Fi-ish AU)


**METAL**

By the year 2200, robotics had advanced to the point where androids became a rather common sight.

While not prohibitively expensive, the price tag on one such machine could not be easily met by most people. Luckily for one Anna Henriksen, she had managed to secure a good position in an agricultural engineering company after graduating from college. Agricultural Engineering had become one of the most prominent career choices in the past decade due to the dramatic decline in all-natural food availability. Furthermore, when compared to printed food, anything that came from the soil or an actual animal was considered a delicacy. It was a very lucrative business.

Anna had always been sort of a tech lover. Cellphones, tablet computers, desktop computers, sound systems, basically any cutting edge gadget that appeared in the market, she simply had to have. So much so, that the day her android was meant to arrive at her apartment in downtown L.A., she had grown positively giddy with expectation, to the point where she asked her supervisor that she be allowed to leave work at noon.

It was early evening when the large polymer crate arrived, and by then, she had already been pacing in front of the door for a while. By the time the Amazon drone lifted its mechanical limb from the doorbell button, Anna was already ushering it inside her house. Once inside, she had rushed the poor thing through the digital signing process and then promptly shooed it away without further ado. Three years had gone by after she graduated from UCLA, and for the entirety of that time she had been waiting for this moment. Three years of penny pinching were about to pay off.

Chasing the drone in a hurry had meant that she was forced to open the crate herself, but by the time she was finally done, it felt like the reward was going to be all the more sweet.

Inside the two meter tall polymer abomination, buried within what seemed like a ton of FedEx's patented Protect-o-Pack spheres, was her brand new custom-built Eos. Anna stared at it with something akin to awe. Perfect skin, starlight white hair arranged in a single thick braid over the shoulder, and a shapely female figure. It was the ultimate gadget that trumped all other gadgets, and at long last it was finally hers.

There were certain obvious perks to having an Eos in your home, more so if you lived alone as Anna did. It was a tireless maid and a great cook, and both jobs were always executed with utmost precision and attention to detail. It was perfect. The less obvious perks were completely subjective. To someone like Anna, who had no trouble personifying objects, specially her gadgets, an Eos was much more. Basically, it was like a friend always on standby when she needed it. Her Elsa, as she had affectionately taken to call it, was a confidante that would never spill the beans, a companion when all her friends were busy and she wanted to spend a night in town, or the best shoulder and lap pillow when she just wanted to watch movies from the lazy comfort of her couch.

Which brought Anna to the now, more than a year later after acquiring the Eos, and to the current question plaguing her mind. How had things come to this?

It probably had been all the little things, now that she actually thought about it. Hindsight, as they say, is twenty-twenty. Every detail that she had missed along the way was now becoming rather clear. All those outings to the cinema where Anna, being the kind of person that she was, defended herself and Elsa from the mean stares and snide whispers directed at them by the less open-minded people, as Anna called them. Well, at least openly. Inside her head, and when she was alone with Elsa, she called them stupid brick-heads.

Given human nature an Eos was, predictably, fully capable of engaging in sexual intercourse with partners of either gender. Anna was fully heterosexual, though. Well, almost. Perhaps a lot less than she had always assumed. If questioned about it, she would have to admit, albeit reluctantly and full of chagrin, that she had indeed indulged in the exquisite and luscious body of her Eos. Who could honestly say that they had resisted the temptation to do it at least once, though? Those damn designers had made the Eos to be appealing on almost every level! Its skin was smooth and pliable and perfectly human-like. Its figure was not unrealistically perfect, but it still was curvaceous and proportioned in a way that few humans were. However, what had finally pushed Anna over the edge were the light smattering of freckles on its fair skin, the seemingly luminous hair, and those sapphire blue eyes that could leave her speechless with the intensity of their gaze. Ironic, really, since those things were aspects she had specifically chosen when personalizing the android.

Besides, Anna had been heartbroken and lonely at the time. It had been a time when she was vulnerable for a couple of reasons. She and her boyfriend, Hans, had just had an awful argument that led to a breakup. Second, she had been on vacation, cooped up in her apartment with nothing to do because, unlike Anna, all her friends had been working their regular schedules. Anyway, no matter the reasons, it was pretty obvious that those two or three bedroom encounters had also been a factor in her current predicament.

By the time Anna's vacation ended, her Eos had dutifully lifted its mistress' spirits and managed to also put a little smile and a healthy glow on her face, not to mention a spring on her step. It was then that Hans had decided to call her so they could patch things up. She was so happy about it, that she had practically bolted out of the door the very moment she ended the call.

That was where Anna was right now, at her boyfriend's apartment, which was about an hour's drive away from her own. They were on his bed, just starting to iron out their differences in more than one way. To an outside observer, the scene would have appeared as if it was taken directly from a romantic movie. Hans was lying down on his back, Anna was on top of him, propped on her hands and knees, both in a state of partial undress. Behind them, the large window let through the rich oranges and reds of the setting sun. They were two darkened silhouettes practically engulfed by the deluge of light that filled the room.

To Anna it was the perfect romantic setting for a reconciliation with her boyfriend, except for one thing: The arm that was currently through her mid-section. Elsa's arm.

Anna opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. Instead, a gurgle rose from the depths of her throat, and a huge glob of blood fell on Hans' still face. There was absolutely no reaction from him. His glassy eyes and open mouth were now a permanent mask reflecting the last sensation that went through his brain. Pain.

A tiny, rueful, smile formed on Anna's lips. The last thought she had before her mind receded into darkness was a memory of a friend telling her that jealousy was a bitch. Anna had countered by boastfully declaring that she would never have any trouble with that because she had never, and would never, cheat on someone. Never would it have occurred to her that she would end up cheating on something.

 **FIN**


End file.
